


The Runaway

by aisydays



Category: Victoriocity (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Pre-Canon, Running Away, Siblings, Source: I'm trans and I say so, trans!Sandringham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisydays/pseuds/aisydays
Summary: In the dead of the night, two figures escape from Miss Peregrine's School For Wayward Girls, armed with all their worldly possessions and a plan to avenge their father.The Twins of Mystery may have just lost everything, but a new start may just lead to one of them gaining something they never knew they needed
Relationships: Edward Sandringham & Maud Armistead
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	The Runaway

**Author's Note:**

> Is trans!Sandringham canon? Technically no. Did I, a trans man, take one look at a man who is quoted as saying that he and his twin sister looked identical as kids and run with it? Yes I absolutely did. 
> 
> This will, hopefully, form part of a series following Sandringham throughout his life - so if you like this and want more Twins of Mystery and/or Sandringham/Balmoral content, stay tuned!

St Peregrine’s School For Wayward Girls was one of the best in the whole city of Even Greater London at what it did. What it did was provide a rather unique service to the highest of London society, the crème de la crème of the worst of the worst. Any lord or baron with a dirty secret, a child left on the doorstep of a country manor with a hastily scrawled note or a baby born in the nearby village with suspiciously black hair, would inevitably end up at the door of St Peregrines – cap, and rather extortionate cheque, in hand. The children would be raised quietly and with the most absolute of secrecy, far from any prying eyes or interested tabloids.

St Peregrine’s also provided a rather unique service to the English government. Their insistence on secrecy and concealment meant it was very easy for children to quietly disappear among the rows of neatly uniformed girls and young women. Sometimes these were the children of diplomats, carefully kept from the public eye for their own safety while their parents carried out important work in England or abroad. And sometimes, the school included among its numbers the recently orphaned ex-assistants to one of England’s most notorious serial killers. As part of his… arrangement with Lady Carmichael, his wards had been smuggled away to St Peregrine’s, to gain a proper education in the ways of society.

Unfortunately, this arrangement had hit a bit of a stumbling block. For on the night our story begins, two small shapes were moving across the dark expanse of the school’s grounds. The twins, laden with all the worldly belongings they had left, were sprinting to freedom. Their escape had, naturally, been impeccably planned – they were, after all, well trained in the art of disappearances, and had been since they were old enough to walk. It had been almost no effort at all to arrange the bundle of pillows and clothes, to wait until the dead of night when they knew full well that the matron would be at the other side of the school, and slip silently out of a window and down a conveniently placed ivy.

Freedom smelt like cool night air and the manure from a nearby farm. It blew through the younger twin’s hair as the pair ran, tangling the blond strands into messy knots that no school nurse would force them to pull a brush painstakingly through. No one would snap at them to be more ladylike, or whisper behind a hand at how weird the two were, identical and inseparable – and a lot older than most newcomers. And, most importantly, they were free to get justice for their father.

It hadn’t been long since the murders. All nine of them. They’d spent the first few weeks after the last one in a state of absolute shock, both of them. All the policemen who bustled past, the government officials, all who passed through saw the mute forms of the twins, sat still, silent, and staring. One could almost be forgiven for thinking that they weren’t taking anything, merely statues blankly observing their goings on. But even then, even with their worlds collapsing around them, the twins were planning, scheming. They knew in their hearts even then, even as they watched their father carted off to rot in a cell who knows where, with the whole world believing him a murderer, that they would fix this someday.

The school was a mere hurdle. They had scouted the area on their journey up, heard rumours of an old couple who would be willing to take in a pair of poor orphaned runaways, no questions asked. No one would recognise the Child of Mystery, the dazzling star of Edouard Vidocq’s stage show, in the bedraggled and stressed teenagers currently rapping on the farmhouse door. The older twin had made sure of this, strategically ripping clothing and rubbing in mud just so to transform their features. It was no substitute for the greasepaint they had used before, to smooth out any difference between the two almost identical faces, but it would do for now. In the meantime, the younger twin came up with the stories, spinning excuses and alibis so watertight you could have sailed across the channel on them.

It was harder than they had first assumed, coming up with new identities. Maud hadn’t exactly been thrilled with her new name, but the plain and unassuming nature of it suited her well – a fine name to exemplify her new life. She suggested many similar names for her twin – Susan, Mary, Jane. But each felt  _ wrong _ , chafing like a too tight pair of handcuffs. Femininity felt like an ill-fitting costume, like another unnecessary layer of pretence on top of all the lies. It didn’t truly click into place, that vague sense of unease, until Maud jokingly suggested cutting off all their hair so the matron would stop tugging at it so hard. She pulled her twin’s back, scraped tightly against the scalp to mimic a shaved head, and…

it just felt right.

And so, on that fateful night, Maud Armistead knocked on the farm door and retreated, to stand by her brother, the newly christened Edward. He had been teased something awful when he chose the name, albeit with love. After all, what name could have been more appropriate, more of a spit in the face to those who took their father from them and tried to shut them away at this school. Edouard may have been captured, but Edward would come to his rescue. 


End file.
